Opinion

I am a Native mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. The men, women, girls, and boys in my family are Indigenous. I have spent my entire life living with the possibility of violence or death aimed at myself and the people who I love the most. Every single time an act of violence against a person or a group of peop...

While Minnesotans across the state have felt the impacts of the coronavirus outbreak, our students, small businesses, hospitals, long-term care facilities and others have carried much of the weight of this pandemic. We all feel a responsibility to keep our vulnerable populations safe and we think about how our local...

I was raised to believe the Catholic Church had greater regard for human life than your average shopping mall. Instead, Minnesota's Catholic and conservative Lutheran churches are making plans to reopen in the middle of a pandemic and before state health officials say...

(This editorial first appeared in The Washington Post.) The National Debt Clock hangs above New York City’s Avenue of the Americas as a persistent reminder of a clear message: The United States is recklessly living beyond its means, and this will have grave future consequences. In the same symbolic spirit, it is...

In my roles as a high school educator and as an Education Week teacher-advice blogger, I talk with a lot of educators, students, and parents in my local community of Sacramento, Calif., and throughout the United States. Based on those conversations and on my own experience over the past few weeks, I've begun to wonder...

(CNN) - The pandemic ravaging some Native American communities has echoes that go back centuries -- to the measles and smallpox epidemics that first decimated the original Americans. This time, however, rapid action can avert a catastrophe. The stakes are high. And the human stories are already heartbreaking. For...

A couple of years ago I wrote in a series for Medium about how the solidarity between the Choctaw Nation and the Irish people two hundred years ago is how we can resist the power vertical today. In 1847, Choctaw survivors of the Trail of Tears sent a couple of hundred dollars, a fortune to them, to Irish Famine...

As Sharon Nelson and I clicked elbows goodbye on the Navajo (Diné) Nation on March 10, what we thought then was a heightened precaution was unfolding as the new normal in a world turned upside down by the COVID-19 outbreak. We had just finished a workshop in Crownpoint, New Mexico, on the Navajo reservation, as part...

Readers keep asking in this age of Covid-19: How can I help? With so many people sick and dying and American unemployment at a level not reached since the Great Depression — and people in poor countries even worse off — readers want to address those needs. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/opin...

Gov. Tim Walz made official Thursday what Minnesota families suspected was coming: Schools throughout the state will remain closed for the dwindling weeks remaining in the 2019-20 academic year. Minnesota had been one of the holdouts nationally on announcing this move for K-12 students. Thirty-nine other states,...

Catherine Rampell has an excellent column explaining Trump’s obvious motive in reopening the economy. She starts off pointing out that most Americans and most health experts are not nearly as anxious to reopen the economy as Trump is. Gee I wonder why ? https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/21/1...

There is another health disaster on the horizon. Just as with the current pandemic, there's plenty of evidence that a new wave is headed our way. What is it, and most important, will we be better prepared for it than we were for COVID-19? Our food supply is now at...

Gov. Tim Walz has extended Minnesota's stay-at-home order until May 4, and for anyone who may have questioned the wisdom of doing so, the latest statistics offer grim proof of need. On Thursday, the Minnesota Department of Health reported 88 new cases of COVID-19...

BURLINGTON, April 8 — In an opinion piece published today in The Guardian, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) laid out the “core principles” which he believes must guide Congress’s next legislative package to tackle the coronavirus pandemic: We cannot rely on Trump. Congress must lead the way in this unprecedented...

As the coronavirus sweeps across the planet, leaving death and mayhem in its wake, many theories are being expounded to explain its ferocity. One, widely circulated within right-wing conspiracy circles, is that it originated as a biological weapon developed at a secret Chinese military lab in the city of Wuhan that...

Minnesota's Super Tuesday results, which helped catapult former Vice President Joe Biden into the front-runner spot nationally, showed the party was right to forgo its caucus system for a presidential primary. Some 885,000 Minnesotans turned out to vote in the primary,...

The House has its share of infamies, great and small, real and symbolic, and has been the scene of personal infamies from brawls to canings. But the conduct of Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the State of the Union address this week will go down as a day of infamy for the...

By the time you read this, President Donald Trump's impeachment trial will be nearing its conclusion. Because of the importance of this vote, and the historic nature of only the third presidential impeachment in our history, I want to tell you directly why I will vote...

One thing unites Minnesotans across every political, social and regional divide in this state, and that's the line for a new driver's license, now serving: not you. Nobody likes the line. Nobody wants to be in the line. http://www.startribune.com/rea...

The fix is in. The jury is anything but impartial. The verdict is pretty much foreordained. But that isn't what this trial will be about. http://www.startribune.com/the-impeachment-is-about-politics-but-not-all-about-politics/567022042/...

Less than one month ago, Sen. Steve Daines introduced Senate Bill 3019, the Montana Water Rights Protection Act, to the US Senate. In his attempt to fix the CSKT Water Compact, which is the most divisive legislation in modern Montana history, Daines made the issue worse. The intent of his bill is to obtain...

Donald Trump is only the third U.S. president to be impeached. Chances are extremely thin he'll actually be removed from office. But the process, like the president himself, prompts strong opinions among elected leaders and the voting public. We'll review the...

In Bemidji, you do not need a calendar to know when the first day of the month is. When you go to get groceries at Walmart at this time, it is similar to a Black Friday-esque experience; the parking lots are as packed as the aisles, shoulder-to-shoulder. Witnessing...

Snowy as this month has been, and chilly, Minnesota's early days were even less of a picnic. Winters were colder, food scarcer and shelters flimsier. Seeking an antidote to these discomforts, one that both tranquilized and energized, Native Americans settled along...

Minnesota children deserve the best educations possible, no matter their ZIP code, race or economic status. They deserve the best teachers in safe and healthy classrooms. They deserve to have access to the materials they need for class. And they deserve to eat lunch...